Discover the brilliant experienced people who are helping SmartPlanet through the green and ethical minefield.
With so many companies rushing to jump on the green bandwagon at the moment, it can be confusing to keep track of who is actually making an effort to become sustainable, who is simply greenwashing and who lies somewhere in between. A Canadian company called Big Room has set up a website called Ecolabelling.org to help with all the confusion, as now there are so many certifications, accreditations and seals of approval out there that it's hard to tell what's what.
The site lists all the known labels that products and services can bear, with some vital information on each -- it's easy to know what Fairtrade is, but some are smaller and more obscure. With all of them in one place, it's easy to find out whom you should trust and what each label means.
At the moment Big Room has 285 global labels on the site, organised by country or product type, and we found that most of the important ones are already there. You can let the site's owners know if they're missing any and they'll do their research and add them as soon as they can. Descriptions are in plain English, and oftentimes contact details and links to more information are listed as well. The site may not provide everything you need to know, but it's a great place to start your research.
"We realised that it's hard to find out who's deciding what's 'green', so we set out to make it easier for everyone to look behind the label. Knowing who's behind it and what it means can help people to separate the green from the greenwash," says Jacob Malthouse, co-founder of Big Room.
Listing all of this information in one place has other benefits as well -- the group has noticed that certain areas aren't very well represented by certification bodies.
"Interestingly enough, Big Room didn't find any eco labels for the emerging clean-tech sector, including technologies around alternative energy," says Anastasia O'Rourke, another co-founder of Big Room.
"Right now, clean-tech has a green halo, but as it grows, we expect more questions to be raised around its green credentials and hence more certification schemes. We will be tracking new schemes on ecolabelling.org as they come online."
We'll be watching out too!
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Discover the brilliant experienced people who are helping SmartPlanet through the green and ethical minefield.
